Brief History (Exerpts from Wikipedia)

The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is a two-seat, twin engine, all-weather, long-range supersconic jet fighter-bomber and interceptor originally developed for the United States Navy by McDonald Aircraft. It first entered service in 1960 with the Navy. Proving highly adaptable, it was also adopted by the United States Marine Corps and the United States Air Force, and by the mid-1960s had become a major part of their air arms.

The Phantom is a large fighter with a top speed of over Mach 2.2. It can carry more than 18,000 pounds of weapons on nine external hardpoints, including air-to-air missiles,air-to-ground missiles, and various bombs. The F-4, like other interceptors of its time, was initially designed without an internal cannon. Later models incorporated an M16 Vulcan rotary cannon. Beginning in 1959, it set 15 world records for in-flight performance, including an absolute speed record and an absolute altitude record.

As noted in the title, this book is a scaled down version of its bigger volume on the Grumman A-6 Intruder family. This volume includes descriptions and photographs of the attack versions of the A-6, as well the tanker (KA-6D) and both electronic warfare versions, the EA-6A and the EA-6B. The book is lavishly illustrated with both color and black and white photographs with informative captions.

Chapter 1 briefly discusses the design and development of the A-6. In late 1950’s the Navy issue a request for the design of an all-weather attack aircraft with two crewmembers to replace the A-1 Skyraider. Grumman’s proposal was selected by the Navy and first flew in April of 1960. Adopted by both the Navy and the Marines, the A-6 Intruder became a mainstay of Navy and Marine Corp combat operations in Vietnam. The chapter includes a brief description of the systems installed in the A-6 to give it it’s all-weather capabilities.

Mottling the paint scheme on a model by hand can be difficult and rather time consuming. Keeping the paint at a consistent density, avoiding a semblance of a “pattern” in the layout of the mottling, and paying attention to panel lines are all issue that need attention when applying a “mottled” finish.

Masterpiece has addressed these issues with an easy-to-use set of templates. The templates are sturdy pieces of a cardboard-type paper. Each template contains a multitude of holes and openings that are of a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Some of the “knock-out” panels that make up the openings in the template are still in place. Removing them will bring about a diverse pattern each time you use the template. Also, reversing which side of the template you use (top or bottom) as the surface in contact with the model, will provide additional diversity.

Hauler-Brengun is known as a supplier of high-quality detail parts for aircraft, as well as other subjects. Once assembled and painted the bomb provides a very nice addition to an aircraft model.

Package Contents

• Eight resin bomb bodies
• One sheet of photoetch
• One instruction sheet

Instructions

The sheet contains one page showing how the parts are assembled on the bomb (fins, fuse arming fan and bomb rack attachments).

Construction

As you can imagine the parts for this bomb are very tiny. The fins once cut from the PE sheets mount with a butt joint on the aft end of the bomb. The fuse and bomb rack attachments are extremely small, so it is advised as you remove the parts from the PE sheet you cut them while the PE sheet laying on a piece of double backed tape.

All parts were attached with C/A.

For those that be unfamiliar with Scale Aircraft Conversions this handy explanation from Scale Aircraft Conversions website should solve that problem: We (SAC) are currently producing a line of white metal landing gear for 1/24 to 1/72 scale aircraft. Some sets consist of the main gear only while others include the nose gear. Some inaccuracies in the original kit gear have been corrected but the mounting points remain identical to the factory parts. We have not sought to duplicate component parts where the factory plastic parts are reasonably accurate.